The present invention relates to apparatus and a method for pre-call notification and, more particularly, but not exclusively to such apparatus and method for use in cellular telephony including roaming cellular telephony, as well as Voice over IP (VoIP).
Today there is a basic need to know to caller identity before answering a call. Some of the fix-line phones, as well as the mobile handsets display the CLI (caller line identification) on the phone display, if available.
CLI may be used in the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN)—an international standard for end-to-end digital transmission of voice, data, and signaling. An ISDN connection is terminated by a Private Automatic Branch Exchange (PABX)—an exchange used for switching calls within an organization.
In some countries, the terms Caller ID (CID), Caller Display, Calling Line Identification Presentation (CLIP), Call capture, or just Calling Line Identity (CLID) are used with or instead of CLI.
CLI typically includes a number identifying the caller. In some telephony networks, when a phone switch sends out the number, the remote phone company is responsible for looking up the name of the subscriber in a common database.
One disadvantage of the CLI is that nothing ensures that the number sent by a switch is the actual number where the call originated.
Subscribers can prevent their numbers from being displayed, by dialing a special code before making a call or by a permanent arrangement with the telephony provider. In North America and some other regions, the code *67 is used for preventing the numbers from being displayed. This special code does not block the information from companies using Call capture technology.
CLI has several other disadvantages. For example: (a) The CLI is not always recognized by the callee. (b) While a cellular user is roaming in a visited network, that is a network other than the home network the cellular user is subscribed to, the CLI is not being transferred over the international lines, in several, if not in most of the cases. This disadvantage is equally true for fixed phones calling abroad or mobile phones calling mobile phones in other countries.
Furthermore, the basic need for call preview information goes beyond the information provided by CLI. Some additional information regarding the call may prove helpful for the callee, in order to decide whether to accept the call or reject it, such as the urgency of the call, the location of the caller, the charge amount, etc. For example, in roaming, the callee is paying the International part of the phone bill for the caller, so he wants to know whether to answer or not.
There are many variants to conventional CLI but all share a basic drawback of providing to the called party only information which is essentially persistent, such as a phone number, name of the caller, images of the caller etc. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,907,604, entitled “Image icon associated with caller ID”, to Hsu, discloses a facial image of a future caller to be presented to a callee upon an incoming call initiated by the caller.
Attempts at providing enriched information with regards to the made call by the caller to the callee before the call is actually answered have been made. However, these attempts fail to teach how to synchronize the provision of enriched information to the user and the call itself.
For example, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/362,105, entitled “Method of and apparatus for communicating user related information using a wireless information device”, to Randall, discusses the provision of presence information (such as being busy, attending a meeting etc.) from the caller to the callee and the other way around, in a pre-call basis. However, Randall fails to teach how to synchronize the provisioning of the presence information and the actual call.
There is thus a widely recognized need for, and it would be highly advantageous to have a system for delivering pre-call information which is devoid of the above limitations.